Southeast Asia was one of the first regions hit by the spread of COVID-19. The region’s public health response varied, with some states like Vietnam proving models for the world, while others, like Indonesia and the Philippines, faltered badly. However, they have generally taken a common approach in one area: nearly all have used the pandemic to crack down on political freedoms and civil liberties.

The strategies Kabila adopted to avoid stepping down at the end of his term in December 2016 inadvertently consolidated this new democratic wave.

[T]he more distant the experience of military rule, the greater has been society's reconciliation to the reality of democracy as the only game in town.

Sri Lanka's ethnoreligious divisions are bound to continue as long as the likes of Rajapaksa dominate the island's political scene.

What keeps European states committed to the EU project has not changed: it is economically much better to be inside the bloc than outside.

European democracy has always been playing catch-up with popular aspirations for democratic representation.

Nations that endured communist dictatorships must come to terms with the traumas of the past before durable democracies can take hold—a lesson the author learned firsthand in Romania.

An ambitious attempt to trace the uneven progress toward liberal democracy over several centuries of European history may have drawn the wrong conclusions for dealing with today's illiberals.

The heterogeneity and decentralized character of the protest movement is proving to be its greatest strength and weakness.

[T]he financial crisis can be best understood as the final catastrophic stage of a process of dismantling the protective institutions that made Western European capitalism politically sustainable …

Politicians proved unwilling to do the hard work of challenging vested interests and convincing electorates of the need for more profound reforms in the aftermath of the crisis.

Policies chosen by Putin, not innate forces of history, culture, or tradition, pushed Russia in a more autocratic direction …

The revolution … ended the hopelessness, apathy, and indifference that had come to characterize the post-Soviet period.

Is one of Asia's oldest democracies rejecting its tradition of liberalism in exchange for a strongman who can restore self-esteem and bring order to a desperate nation?

Reformasi-era values concerning citizen welfare and the public good remain deeply entrenched among a small but vocal segment of society.

The most disturbing aspect of the debate is the impact it is having on Chinese Australians who want to successfully integrate into Australian society.

From local to national politics, the state, the party, and the personal interests of elites have merged into one machine.

What used to be viewed as relatively self-defined polities in a previous era … are now being reconfigured by competing centripetal and centrifugal tensions.

[T]he conflicts surrounding the 2017 elections severely eroded the integrity of democracy in Kenya.

While Sharif's disqualification was certainly not as egregious as an outright coup or any other extraconstitutional intervention, the nature and process of his removal amounts to another setback for democracy in Pakistan.